Here's a list of new stuff added recently with short descriptions, to save you some time when you get around to update the guides:
Potions:
- Apprentizer: every time you spend mana (using an item or a staff) your magic skill increases by 1%. Drinking multiple potions stacks, so if you drink 5 of those, every time you use mana, your magic skill increases by 5%. Pretty OP for mages, but also usable for Knights and Archers as you can build up your magic and use the various helper items/weapons more effectively (ex. Earthquake staff breaks more rocks, Turret staff shoots more powerful orbs, Snake staff buffs your sword/bow with stronger poison, etc.)
- Money is Power: every 100 coins you have give you +1% to all skills (melee, magic, archery). The effect stacks, so if you drink 5 potions and have 300 coins, you would get +15% boost to all skills. This potion is OP when combined with Avarice or other items that earn you a lot of gold (ex. Magic Chest)
- Every Hit's a Crit: gives you 100% critical chance for the next battle. Similar to Mega Boost, it's useful to save for bosses and other tough fights.
- Bomberman: same effect as Double Bomb item, see below.
Scroll:
- Confusion: all enemies start thinking that everyone is their enemy. It also enables "friendly fire" on enemy units so they can hit each other even with orbs or thrown weapons. The AI might still decide to attack the player, especially if you hit an enemy. Useful when there are many enemies on the screen. It only works for enemies that are present, so don't use it too early in the boss fights - wait for some minions to spawn first.
Weapons:
- Cutlass: 7/17 damage, 65 reach. Sword moveset. +1% melee skill for every kill - does not count for spawned minions. Very usable weapon if you get it early or mid-game.
- Sword of the Damned: 40/50 damage, 91 reach. Sword moveset. The most deadly melee weapon in the game damage wise. The sword is cursed and you lose HP every time you hit an enemy (-5HP for quick attack and -10HP for strong attack, damage reduction from shields does not help here). If you have a giraffe and/or strawberry staff at hand it creates a nice challenge of having to restore you health all the time. Health/mana potions become very usable. Also usable if you get the Bare Bones Amulet and try to play without getting hit at all.
- Batting Sword: 8/18 damage, 81 reach, sword moveset. A decent sword for the early game (and later if upgraded). Has ability to repel enemy projectiles back at them. It takes a lot of practice to actually do that for Guard spears and Goblin Berserker axes as the window for hitting is short. You can use it to repel the crown of the Slime King boss for high damage. It's easy to repel multiple weapons at once if you use the rage attack (dash). There's a new quest in the forest where you can try to repel some axes across the screen and get runestones from barrels on the other side (or you can just teleport across if you have the teleport staff)
- Great Blood Axe: 20/30, 96 reach. Similar to the War Axe it has the quick melee swing attack that deals a lot of damage. This weapon feeds on blood - it gets +1 damage after every battle, but you lose 50 HP every time you bring it into a new room. This weapon is for players who want high risk/reward ratio. If you get it early on, it will get very strong and quickly clear rooms of enemies, but you can also die from any shot. It combines very well with the Unicorn Horn - since you're going to play with low HP all the time, you might as well enjoy the double-damage benefit. If you also find the Dwarven Spinner, this weapon can one-shot most enemies in the game
- Clockwork staff: 6 damage. If you have gold, it will shoot it (1 coin per orb) adding +15 damage to those orbs. This fixed damage upgrade makes it usable for knights as well if they need a ranged option for some boss/shop fights and don't want to carry bow and arrows. The staff is extremely usable in the dungeon as you can turn off all the traps making the level much easier and also allowing you to rob the shops without much trouble.
- Notched bow: 50 bow damage, 30% chance to fire three arrows instead of one (each shot spends only 1 arrow regardless).
Items:
- Chain Reactor: makes the enemies drop bombs when they die (one to the left and one to the right) if you keep the enemies lined up, this can create a nice chain reaction and kill them all. Duplicating it has no effect.
- Double Bomb: when you drop a bomb, you will drop another one for free in the opposite direction. Duplicating (and/or drinking Bomberman potions) makes you drop 3,4,5... etc. bombs all arranged in a circular area around the player.
- Silver Coin: you can only get the coin by buying 4 items in a shop. The coin is a single-use item which you can carry with you (just like bombs, for example) and it teleports you into a randomly selected shop in the level. If you are already in a shop it will teleport you into another one. Some of the uses for this item is the Amanda's quest (so you can quickly get into the shop in the Castle) and whenever you need to escape from tough situations into a safe place.
- Wooden Shield: halves the damage taken for 10 hits. Same effect like the starting Knight's shield or the Toughness potion
- Warrior's Emblem: adds 40% to your melee skill
- Green Slimeball: your feet become sticky, making you much slower (-2 speed) but you no longer slide on ice. This is the same effect as walking into a puddle created by the Slime Boss, except it's permanent. If you have a mount or low speed, it is advisable to skip this. It can be duplicated, but it's only worth it in co-op games, so that all players can have one.
- Battle Horn: increases the "flight" speed of projectiles: orbs, arrows, thrown weapons. It does not affect the shooting speed, only how fast the projectiles fly. This is very useful to reduce slowdown the effect of the Full Metal Jacket. It can be duplicated for increased effect.
- Pillow: makes you invulnerable during special attacks. Basically this prevents the enemy hits from interrupting your special attack animation. This includes rage attacks like "dash" or "piercing arrow" and magic "buff" animations. So you know when you press the special attack button that it cannot be interrupted by getting hit. You can also use this fact to walk through some traps without getting hit.
- Steel boots: slow you down (-1 speed) and make you immune to floor traps. Currently only useful in the dungeon, where you can use it to rob the shops as well.
- Goldsmith's magnet: make all the coins in the room fly toward you. Very nice when combined with the Portable Foundry and the Bear pet allowing you to turn unreachable items into gold and pick it up.
- Dwarven Spinner: gives you triple melee damage for axes and hammers. All thrown weapons are tripled. This combines great with Mjolnir, and also with the Ringleader Hammer - you can throw 3 hammers, each doing 40 damage.
- Carpenter's Emblem: creates a copy of any thrown weapon - flying in the opposite direction. This makes the Ringleader Hammer very usable alternative to Mjolnir as you don't have to turn to throw it. Still Mjolnir bounces so they kind of even out. If you get the Dwarven Spinner as well, it can quickly turn into an OP combination with one of those throwing hammers.
- Miner's Shield: 10 hits damage reduction (similar to wooden shield) AND you drop a bomb whenever you get hit. This can change your play style significantly as you might position yourself to get hit in such a way to break some rocks with those bombs that drop. It gets really interesting if you have had a couple of bomberman potions and the Ice Bomb, it can easily freeze and kill all the enemies around you (just be careful not to run into some of the bombs yourself).
- Bare Bones Amulet: reduces your health to 20, your HP to 1 and mana cost for all items and weapons to 1. Pretty risky, but if you can find some blood runestones it can be great. Also, if you've got a Bottomless Bag, you can create a bomb in every room and basically skip everything except the boss battles.
- Mom's Book of Chores: slows down all enemies in every room you enter. Similar to the Lazy Enemies scroll, but it's permanent effect and works in every room. Unlike other books, this book cannot be obtained via altars. The only places to get it is the pedestal after the boss fight in the old catacombs and the starting pedestal in the forest (only if you haven't beaten the Executioner yet).
- Elven shield: protects you from 20 ranged hits (orbs, arrows, thrown weapons). It doesn't look like much, but being able to walk and attack without being interrupted has saved me so many times, especially in some boss fights where the boss or his minions use the ranges attacks. Worth to duplicate because the effect stacks.
- Bear in the Barrel. Extends the weird connection between bears and barrels in the game (the bear pet breaks all the barrels and boxes). Every time a barrel is destroyed (either by you, pets or enemies) the player gets full rage. Very useful in long fights in rooms with many barrels. Combines very well with the Evergreen Oak Branch staff (which lets you create barrels).
- Portable Foundry: a non-consumable item allowing you to smelt any item or weapon into gold. It doesn't cost any mana, so you can just bring it along and smelt all the things you don't need
Some important changes:
- bows now come with a "backup" dagger you can use as a melee weapon. There is no triple-shot by default anymore (but Notched bow has triple shot chance)
- Celestial Hammer now automatically aims at the enemies
- Shepherd staff mana cost is reduced to 1
- Healer shop vendor sometimes sells the staff so you don't have to kill her to get it
- reduced the Bottomless Bag of Bombs mana cost to 3